JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/15/26

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Ben Clemens

2:49

Well Dom Smith is basically repeating last year, where he was a nice little part-time 1B

so I think that one is at this point the default expectation for me

Mateo, yeah, I think that he's a case somewhat like Nick Allen actually

2:50

the Braves are pretty good at seeing guys who might be capable of doing a very specific thing that you need. Exactly like you said

but I mean, Mateo still can't hit

I think that if you told me 3 years ago he'd end up as a nice glove-first shortstop with occasinoal hot streaks offensively, I'd be totally onboard

2:51

I think that he just kind of got squeezed with the O's, and the utility infielder role wasn't great for him

bosoxforlife

2:51

Is there some way Kyle Harrison can have the start he was forced to make in LV expunged from his record? These games destroy several statistical stats.

Ben Clemens

2:51

haha right?

I stupidly started him in fantasy not realizing it was in Vegas

That's the downside of these, and that's also why I think that having a full-time park like this would be totally unacceptable

2:52

I'm curious what we'll do about park factors for these games

like, there were only 6 games there. it'd be wildly irresponsible to try to work out factors

but also, clearly they're ridiculously high

a 5 ERA there would be spectacular

crzy_guy

2:52

Soo... Bryce Eldridge's contact rate is up and his swinging strike rate is down relative to AAA. Is he for real?

Ben Clemens

2:52

it's early but the signs look good. He's following the old 'first time up to get my feet wet, second time up to hit' pattern that used to be more normal for top prospects

2:53

I'm expecting plenty of growing pains even if he is a smash hit though. He's just SO large

and long-levered

I think that there are going to be intermittent growing pains and adjustment periods as teams work out new ways to attack him

but it's a very encouraging sign to see him improve markedly in his second attempt

and he's still very young

Jeremy Fox

2:53

At the moment, looks like Christopher Sanchez is going to become the first pitcher to throw over 50 consecutive scoreless innings--a quarter of the entire season!--and not win the Cy Young award, right?

Ben Clemens

2:54

it's too early to say for sure, it looks like he and miz are 1/2 in some order, but they each have half a season to play

it's wild that Sanchez isn't the favorite right now. but we're just having two absolutely incredible seasons at once

Seuss2004

2:55

What do you think of Justin Crawford's struggles and they way his playing time is dropping? I'm inclined to let a super young kid work it out when he's supposed to be your #9 hitter anyway, not compensate for a ton of veterans being awful by pretending the problem lies with him.

Ben Clemens

2:56

I concur. I would not be shorting his playing time if I thought that he was good enough to play in the majors, and the fact that they started him in the bigs is a very clear sign as to that

it's a classic bind of a contending team

but I think that the contending teams who are best at resolving these binds tend to be the ones who just say 'screw it we play him'

appayipyip

2:56

Are you buying Brandon Valenzuela as a potential starter caliber catcher?

Ben Clemens

2:56

potential? for sure

2:57

I'm taking his offense with an enormous grain of salt

there's just a LOT of track record of him not hitting

but he looks pretty good to me across the board on defense, and I tend to round up my expectations of Jays catcher readiness because they've been really good at it

Fangraphs Man

2:58

Speaking of the Vegas park, are the A’s gonna keep their AAA affiliate in Vegas after they move there? Don’t think there’s ever been a milb team in the same city as its parent club (or a milb team in a mlb city period)

Ben Clemens

2:58

no. I"m not the person to ask on the official rules on this but I'm fairly certain that you can't have big and minor league teams in the same city without some very specific exceptions

bareznick

2:58

For voting purposes, there should be leader boards since the last All-Star game!

Ben Clemens

2:58

that would be really good honestly

i make my own 'since the last trade value series' leaderboard to try to bang some misconceptions out of my head every year, and I find it really useful

didace

3:00

The Twins' AAA team is in St Paul.

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